On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

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Penguin Classics, 2009 - Science - 516 pages

Darwins Idea, Evolution through natural selection, actually explains the meaning of life; it is the biggest single idea ever, its breadth and scope enormous, its means so perfectly economic, its capacity to shock and excite persist, to this day.

'Such emotion and passion over a search for essential truth are also the substance of art, such belief and relevance it goals. The myriad ways of understanding and expressing the beauty of life are a constant inspiration.

'There's an infinite number of ways to get to the same point.'

Damien Hirst, 2009

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Contents

Acknowledgements
vii
Introduction
xv
Further Reading
liv
Copyright

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About the author (2009)

Charles Robert Darwin, born in 1809, was an English naturalist who founded the theory of Darwinism, the belief in evolution as determined by natural selection. Although Darwin studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and then studied at Cambridge University to become a minister, he had been interested in natural history all his life. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a noted English poet, physician, and botanist who was interested in evolutionary development. Darwin's works have had an incalculable effect on all aspects of the modern thought. Darwin's most famous and influential work, On the Origin of Species, provoked immediate controversy. Darwin's other books include Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Charles Darwin died in 1882.

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